


Wake Me Up

by Her_Madjesty



Category: Satan and Me (Webcomic)
Genre: 3/12/17 update response, Before The Storm, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Sharing a Bed, kind of, quiet moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-10-04 04:16:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10268063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Her_Madjesty/pseuds/Her_Madjesty
Summary: A collection of missing moments.





	1. Wake Me Up (Wake Up to Me) (3/12 Response)

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I got invested. I write to deal with my feelings. This is likely going to be a compilation of short, response drabbles to SaM updates that take my feelings and decide to strangle them. I am vaguely, happily, grumpily bitter about this.
> 
> XOXO

Limping back to the motel room is -

Is -

It is Natalie, her skin warm again and her chest rising and falling, gentle. It is blood trickling down his back and pain, more pain than he can ever remember being in, but that doesn’t matter. It is the tickle of her hair against his skin and the weight of her in his arms. It is _her_ , existing, with her eyes fluttering back and forth beneath her eyelids in REM sleep, better than anything he’s ever seen in years upon years of existing.

It takes a concentrated effort not to kick down the door to their room ( _their_ room); as it is, he spends several seconds adjusting his grip on her sleeping ( _sleeping!_ ) form so he doesn’t have to let her go. The sheets have been washed, and the room has been sprayed with some sort of air freshener that burns his nose, but otherwise, it is unchanged.

He sets her down, bending his back and grimacing as he loses her warmth and as the cuts on his back widen. He needs to find a towel, if only to stop the blood; he’ll heal (eventually), but leaving blood on the sheets will only make leaving this damned place all the harder.

Natalie’s face shines pale in the moonlight. Her mouth parts in a soft sigh.

Lucifer stares. Something hard and terrible flutters in his chest; his eyes sting, but he ignores it, fights it back, balls his hands into fists and -

Can’t quite force himself to look away, but hey. She’s not awake to judge him.

It takes too much effort to pull his eyes from her; turning his back on her to slip into the too-small bathroom is nearly impossible, but he’s managed more painful things before. By the time he’s returned, two towels have been bloodied and left in the shower (he’ll clean them up after she’s woken; she can shower after she’s been fed).

He doesn’t think twice about climbing into the bed. The sheets itch. He doesn’t care. He watches her breathe and feels the hand clamped around his throat begin to loosen; it becomes easier to time his own unnecessary breaths with hers.

He reaches out -

Stops.

Her limp hand, an inch away, radiates a warmth that doesn’t overpower but that still brings him up short. He redirects, brushes her hair out of her face, instead, then pulls his hand back to his chest.

(It burns.)

He doesn’t notice when his eyelids droop, when the world around him goes soft. He keeps his gaze focused on her (and she’ll tease him about that, when she wakes; tell him he’s a creep, and frankly, he can’t _wait_ to hear it).

When the world goes dark, he doesn’t worry. He lingers, basking in the outskirts of her warmth, and rests.

Everything will be alright in the morning.


	2. Talking to Myself (3/12 Response)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was editing this when the latest update (3/14) went up. The things this comic does to me. XOXO

The comforter of the motel bed dwarfs her in death. One hand curled beneath her head, teasing strands of orange – it’s like she’s gotten smaller, more fragile, over the course of the day.

Natalie was never – _is never –_ one to make herself smaller for the sake of others. The sight of her reduced is more than enough to set Lucifer’s teeth on edge.

So he paces.

The glances he throws her are brief, heartbeat things, like he’s afraid she’ll catch him staring (but she won’t; she _can’t –_ but she will. Soon). Their rented room is quiet, save for the steadiness of his footsteps. Death, manhandled out of doors, mutters loudly enough that Lucifer can still hear him if he tries – which he doesn’t. Death could be talking to himself; if he’s smart, he’s talking to Pestilence.

Lucifer finishes another lap of the room, then starts anew.

He gives up his glancing, settles his gaze, instead (it’s not like she can yell at him about it right now, anyway). There is no rise of Natalie’s chest in the grip of sleep. Her hair doesn’t flutter with every breath; her body doesn’t _move_.

The headache his tears have left him with burns in the center of his forehead, in his temples, in his jaw. He refuses to allow himself to be moved again, not with Death so close by and so full of himself, snickering in the midst of his one-way conversation. Still, his eyes prickle, and his breaths come ragged.

When Death knocks, Lucifer answers.

“She’ll meet us in fifteen minutes,” Death informs him. His dull eyes focus on nails that don’t exist; when he peels back a loose cuticle, he doesn’t bleed.

“Good,” Lucifer snaps.

Death sighs and flicks the false skin away. “Bring the girl out here,” he says. “We’ll do this out back. Fifteen minutes.”

Before Lucifer can slam the door in his face, the Horseman disappears. He’s left staring at nothing, hand shaking on the wood of the door. When he pulls away and lets it drift shut, he leaves scorch marks behind him.

He paces on.

The first five minutes see him settle with his back to Natalie’s body. In one breath, he rises, places his hand on the door handle with enough bile in his gut to tell Death to go fuck himself; in the next, he’s back on the carpet and trying to ignore the way his stomach roils. They’re – it’s his _wings_ , he doesn’t know if he can’t do this, doesn’t think he can go through with it. The noise in his head may have died, but the familiar weight on his back – the last thing he has left –

(Every time he nearly makes it out the door, he makes the mistake of glancing over his shoulder.)

Another five minutes pass. Lucifer settles himself at the end of her bed and fixes his gaze on the thermostat underneath the window sill. He doesn’t let himself touch her, though he longs for it – she’s a needy creature, Natalie, a physical being, and she’d been on her way to turning him into one before. If he touches her, he’ll feel the chill that’s settled into her skin. If he doesn’t, he can pretend that she’s just sleeping for a little while longer.

Two minutes. He swears under his breath, moves to leave her again. Fails.

One minute.

Death doesn’t come to summon him. Lucifer closes his eyes and breathes out, blowing flame and ash into the dead air of the room.

He’s gathered Natalie up in his arms before this; he’s been forced to become familiar with the weight and move of her. She resists him when he reaches for her, now, her limbs limp and head lolling. Something sharp pierces through his chest as he readjusts her head on his shoulder. It makes him cling to her as he leaves the room.

He ignores the sickly nature of her skin in favor of the dulling orange of her hair. It catches the moonlight and holds it as he carries her outside.

It’s only with her touching him, her body pressed against his, that he begins to talk to her again.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, a breath into her hair.

“I’ll make it right once you’re back.”

“We’ll find a way to keep you safe.”

“I promise, Natalie.”

Then, a whisper, pressed against the crown of her head. “Don’t ever leave me again.”

They are secrets, lost on her and tucked away where no one else can hear them. Lucifer tightens his grip on her as he rounds the corner of the motel.

Death is waiting, passing his scythe back and forth between his non-skeletal hands. Pestilence, it seems, has yet to arrive.

Lucifer doesn’t announce himself. He settles against the side of the motel and carefully readjusts Natalie in his arms.

“I promise,” he murmurs, ignoring the way Death’s head tilts in his direction. “We’ll bring you home safe again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought!


	3. Bad (adj.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer self-assesses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have mixed feelings about this short, but Lucifer's inherent nature and its conflict with Natalie's proposed inherent nature is something I wanted to explore. Perhaps one day I'll do that in a longer piece. Maybe when it's not 2am. 
> 
> By the by, parentheses in this piece stack as followed: ([{-}]). Just imagine the words getting quieter and quieter the more parentheses are around them.
> 
> XOXO

He’s never thought of himself as _bad_ , per say.

Well, no, that’s not true. He’s an ass, at the absolute least; he’s been told as much from the time he was breathed into existence to the moment he fell from Heaven. _Bad_ as a word doesn’t even begin to cover it. You can’t defy the Almighty and have yourself simply relegated to _bad;_ _s_ omething has to be inherently wrong with you if you reject that kind of goodness. He knows. Everyone’s told him so.

All the same, he sits cross-legged on Natalie McAllister’s floor, plucking idly at a loose thread on his leather sandal, and wonders that, if he’s really _bad,_ does he deserve this?

She’s on her twentieth minute talking about some inanity from her schooling; something about Michael’s unfortunate look-alike, so damn him if he’s listening. The grunts he manages to contribute to the conversation seem to be more than enough, however, to keep Natalie going. He can’t quite bring himself to stop responding, no matter how few of her words he catches (and Father knows he’s probably scowling again; she’ll take that as a response, if nothing else.)

(He waits, ears perked, for Natalie to call him on his inattention.)

(With every minute that passes, she continues to surprise him. He's never met anyone this patient - or this _dense_ \- in quite some time.)

(Then again, though, maybe there’s something wrong with her, too; something wrong with the both of them. She ignores that parts of him that have been claimed so essential; she ignores the fire, the brimstone that murders his breath. She ignores Heaven and Michael and paces, chatting away like there’s not a damned thing wrong with this backwards scenario, the Devil making peace with a girl in her bedroom.)

(That’s not the root of the matter, though. The root of the matter is this:

Lucifer knows for a fact that there are people on the damned rock who are a little too much like him. These people – _his_ people, the unfortunate asses – are the ones with a little too little empathy, to whom compassion tastes like ashes, to whom lying, swindling, playing the system – it all come too easily.

But he’s beginning to think, maybe – just maybe – those people go home at the end of the day to one person who actually _talks_ to them. Maybe one person understands that they’re a little bit inept, a touch too immoral, but they stick around, anyway, laughing and brushing shoulders with one of the Devil’s kin.)

(He’s beginning to think this is _normal_.)

Natalie strolls past him again, her voice going muffled by the rise of her sweater as she pulls it over her head, cottoning her moving lips. Lucifer focuses in, hums, and sticks out his foot just in time to send her stumbling. She goes down hard, swearing, but he can hear the laughter in her voice and the patience buried underneath. He manages to arrange his face into a scowl by the time she rights her sweater and herself, but it fractures around the edges the longer she smiles.

(The _problem_ of the matter is this:

If you’re bad, you can’t have these sorts of people around. You’ll drive them away, leave them behind or above where they can lord their righteousness, their good behavior over your head like some bastard sword of Damocles, heavily weighted and kissing the skin of your neck [and he’s already left scars on her back, damn him twice over. He sees them every time she turns, every time she bleeds, and it _burns_. Even when he’s saving her, doing his damndest to get it right, she hurts.])

(That’s why _bad_ simply doesn’t work; it’s not enough, it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t drip off the tongue.)

(Whenever she turns to look at him, smile bright and eyes shining, words like _bad_ just don’t feel right, anymore.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought!


	4. I'm Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Response to the episode "We Care the Most", 1/25/17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been checking Orangeplum's blog nearly daily for new updates because I am in control™ of my love for Satan and Me. Hope you enjoy this little update of mine. Heads up, though, for all the creepiness that is Hell. XOXO

The air is crisp, when she wakes, just on the side of too cold. There is no wind. Natalie hesitates, eyes shut, before stretching out into a world without movement. Her heartbeat pulses, steady and familiar, but it is the only sound she can hear.

When she opens her eyes, the continued darkness is almost – _almost –_ a comfort.

She shifts, face down on some unseen ground, and discovers that it hurts to move. She can breathe again, though, thank small blessings – actually she doesn’t think her sinuses have ever been this clear before. She can smell the world around her, dank with must and mold. When she pushes herself upright, better to sit and stare, she does her best to breathe through her mouth, better to keep the sweat of ages from coating the inside of her nose.

She waits for her eyes to adjust, but no change comes. There’s darkness and only darkness; vast and lonely as it spreads out around her, unending.

Natalie blinks.

She doesn’t know how much time passes before she hears the whispering begin.

“Who’s there?” a voice calls, unfamiliar and tight. “Who’s there, who’s there, who’s here?”

“Lucifer?” Natalie replies.

The voice goes quiet.

“Hello?”

Shuffling, in the distance. The whispers pick up again, near-inaudible and gurgling. Natalie swallows, hard, and pulls into herself, eyes flicking through the darkness.

She tries to stand. Goosebumps rise all over her skin, and her feet buzz from lack of blood flow while chills run marathons up and down her spine. She’s wobbly when she manages to haul herself to her feet, but she doesn’t fall. Instead, she holds her ground and frowns in the direction of the whispering.

“Who are you?” she calls. “Lucifer? Is that you?”

The world around her shudders.

The whispers in the distance seize up, angry and spitting. They steal closer, accompanies by the sound of footsteps and desperate, grizzly muttering. Natalie winces at their coldness. She balls her hands up into fists and tries to catch signs of movement in the dark.

It doesn’t work. The voices just continue to grow louder.

“She’s here she’s here she’s here she’s heRE!”

“SHE’s fiNALly heRE!”

In the distance, something ugly and terrible cackles.

Natalie drops her hands, turns, and runs.

Her feet pound against some invisible floor; if there are obstacles in her path, she doesn’t collide with them. No matter how hard she runs, though, the voices only seem to grow closer.

A hand curls around her ankle. Natalie opens her mouth, tries to scream, and finds that she is unable. She goes down face first and feels a creature settle on her back. A second hand takes to her elbow; another buries itself in her hair. No matter how hard she kicks, something is always touching her; no matter how hard she tries, she can’t find the breath to manage a proper scream.

“Pretty hair, pretty hair!”

“All ours, all OuRS.”

Her foot makes contact with something soft and plasma-like. Natalie finally manages a shriek as she pulls away, scrambling upright and moving further into the black.

Beyond the noise – the voices, the bodies, the desperate, heathen pleas – she hears someone say her name.

Natalie whirls, dodges a hand reaching for her arm, and tries to locate the speaker.

“Natalie.”

It’s familiar and reassuring, and oh, if her heart isn’t singing at the sound. Some of the darkness gives way just ahead of her, revealing a familiar silhouette. Golden horns glow like a crown in the dark; before she’s even spotted their familiar curl, Natalie is running, desperate to be at Lucifer’s side.

“It’s okay, Natalie.” He catches her, hands hot against her skin. She hides her face in the expanse of his chest, sobbing as he wraps his arms around her. If she focuses, the sound of his heartbeat can drown out the voices in the distance, circling around them, demanding that she come back.

“I’m here.”

“Where are we?” she asks, her voice breaking. “Lucifer, what is this place?”

She thinks she hears him chuckle – if nothing else, his chest shakes, but the sound that leaves his mouth is far from familiar. Natalie tries to pull back, but Lucifer’s grip on her tightens.

“Lucifer?” She tries to look up, but his face is steeped in shadow. “What’s going on?”

His hands, still too hot, readjust their grip. Before Natalie has time to blink, Lucifer moves out of the shadows, leaning down to press his mouth to hers.

For an instant, it feels like coming home.

Natalie gasps and feels Lucifer laugh against her mouth. His lips are as a hot as his hands, maybe hotter, but softer, too. There’s a pressure there, an intensity, and Natalie almost lets her eyes shut as he presses himself against her. When he pulls away, he leaves her gasping, her heart slamming against her ribcage. The goosebumps on her skin come from something else entirely, now, and for a moment, all the voices in the darkness go quiet in reverent shock.

Then, Natalie catches a glimpse of Lucifer’s eyes.

One brown, one blue, he grins at her like a madman would, teeth too sharp and smile too crooked. Natalie gasps again, tries to yank herself away, but Lucifer’s – _not_ Lucifer, this _imposter_ ’ _s –_ grip is too strong. She struggles, anyway, and hears the noise resurge; hears cackling in the distance and in the musty air beneath her nose, full of brimstone and the salt of hatred.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Natalie.”

She’s seen those eyes before, stared them down the last time they took Lucifer’s form. The sight of them again, glowing in the dark, makes her sob, but the noise only makes the imposter’s smile grow wider.

The creature wearing Lucifer’s face leans down, pulling Natalie close so her mouth is less than an inch from its own. “We care about you most of all.” The voice is almost crooning, but it sets something hot and terrible burning beneath Natalie’s skin.

“Lucifer!” she shouts, deep into the void. “Lucifer, where are you?”

The imposter only laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought!


	5. What Are You Doing (Without Me)?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missing moments from "Bring Me Lucifer" in the Titus Arc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to thank those of you who've commented on this! I'm a bit shy, so interacting with the community at large is still a bit daunting. If you want to request certain scenarios or moments to be expanded on, hit up the comments and let me know! I'm always looking for inspiration. XOXO

She’s about halfway through her chemistry homework, late on a Thursday evening, when her cell phone starts to buzz.

Natalie ignores it, at first. None of her friends really like to call, so it’s probably a prank or someone with the wrong number. Instead, she leans forward in her desk chair, brushing her pencil eraser over her lips as she tries to sort out a difficult formula.

Her phone goes quiet. It stays that way for half a minute, maybe less, before lighting up again.

Across the room, cradled in her purple bean bag, Lucifer – rather, _Stan_ – lets out a long sighs. “Are you going to answer that?”

“Huh?” Natalie blinks, then turns to look back at him. Lucifer raises an eyebrow, unimpressed, before nodding towards her still buzzing phone.

Natalie tilts her head, then glances towards the device. The screen flashes its caller ID one last time; the name “Laila Soullier”, along with an embarrassing picture Natalie’s pretty sure Laila doesn’t know she has, disappears as the phone goes still.

Natalie swears. She scrambles for the phone, nearly dropping it as she turns and desperately calls Laila back.

Across the room, Lucifer rolls his eyes.

Laila picks up on the phone’s first ring. “McAllister.”

“I am so sorry,” Natalie gushes. “I thought you were some sort of prank call or something; you never call me; is something wrong?”

She hears shuffling on the other end of the line. “I’m fine,” Laila says, after a beat. “But are you free tonight?”

“Yeah, I am,” Natalie says, brow furrowing. “Why? Is something wrong?”

Laila clears her throat. Natalie waits as the silence between the both of them begins to drag.

“Not exactly,” Laila says, at last. “But Felix has been acting weirder than usual lately, and I think it has to do something with that...friend of yours and all of this ‘end of days’ shit. If you’ve got the time, you, me, and Kristi should probably meet, just to make sure we’re all on the same page about what’s going on.”

As covertly as she can, Natalie glances towards Lucifer. “That’s probably a good idea,” she admits. The words leave something cool and nervous in the pit of her stomach.

Lucifer is engrossed in another one of the books from her shelf, too distracted, it seems, to pay her any mind (and she should really run to the library and find him something new; he’s finished nearly everything on her shelf. She was thinking _Paradise Lost_ or something like that; she’d enjoyed it, even if she hadn’t understood it all).

“Just let me double check a few things,” she adds. She sees one of Lucifer’s eyebrows twitch upwards; maybe he’s paying more attention than she thought he was. “I’ll get back to you ASAP, alright?”

Laila huffs. “You sound off, McAllister. Everything alright?”

Natalie opens her mouth to reply, but finds herself unable. She glances towards Lucifer again and catches his golden eyes flashing between her and his book. A lump forms in her throat, but she forces herself to swallow.

“I’m fine, silly,” she says, at last. Her tone is a touch lighter, but even she can tell that it sounds a bit forced. “But it’s good to know you care. I’ll explain a little bit more later, I promise. In any case, I’ll see you soon!”

Laila hums in not-quite disbelief. Natalie fights back a shock of guilt as she hangs up the phone, burying it beneath an “Okay, byee!” so loud that it drives Lucifer back into the depths of his book again.

“What was all that about?” he mutters as Natalie pushes away from her desk.

Natalie opens her mouth, then hesitates. He’s gotten all...hover-y, lately, and while she doesn’t mind _exactly_ , she still wants to be able to go out and be with her friends without him following after her like he’s a lost puppy. _Especially_ when they’re trying to figure out what all’s going on; he’s more than likely to make it all more complicated, and that’s the last thing they need. Especially if Kristi’s going to be there.

“It was just Laila,” she says, a moment too late. “She wants to look over some of the homework we’re supposed to be doing. I don’t know why she thinks I can help, but who am I to turn down a friend in need?”

Lucifer looks up at her and blinks, cat-like. “You do realize,” he says, “that whenever you say things like that, you sound like a damn Disney princess?”

“Do I?” Natalie offers him a glowing smile. “Which one am I?”

“The most obnoxious,” Lucifer grunts. He looks back at her book, nose wrinkled, but Natalie can’t quite wipe the grin off of her face.

She all but skips out of the room, picking up her coat from the living room couch and toeing on her shoes by the door. Lucifer doesn’t follow her, and her father’s long gone out, but she catches herself glancing over her shoulder, all the same.

“I’ll see you later!” she calls.

She waits until she hears Lucifer’s answering grunt before opening the front door.

The same bit of guilt grows heavier in her stomach, but Natalie forces herself to ignore it. It’s not like Lucifer hasn’t snuck out on her before; what’ll it hurt to give him a taste of his own medicine? Besides, it’s just a meeting with Laila and Kristi. There’s not a lot that could really go wrong.

She waits until she’s made it down the driveway before taking out her phone. She dials Laila and waits through the dial tone before she picks up again.

“Alright, I’m out of the house. Sorry if that was weird; Stan’s been a bit helicopter-mom lately and I had to give him the slip. Where do you want to meet?”

***

The pain hits him so abruptly that his book goes tumbling to the floor. Lucifer brings a hand to his stomach, gasping, then grits his teeth as he tries to get himself back under control. When he looks down, all he sees is red, seeping through the fabric of his hoodie and onto the palms of his hands.

Natalie.

He’s on his feet in a second, out the front door of the McAllister home and into the cool night air. Natalie’s presence hums in the back of his mind, incessant and whimpering as he feels her collapse. Lucifer doesn’t have need for his heart, but it’s pounding, anyway, the noise roaring in his ears until he can actually see her face again.

He snaps the stake embedded in her stomach in two before turning to face her attacker. His elbow meets the man’s eye with a force “Stan” shouldn’t be able to wield; it sends whoever the _fuck_ this bastard is sprawling, clutching his face in the light rain.

“That _hurt_ ,” Lucifer spits, still cradling the remnants of the stake in his hand. He fixes on the man, unable to focus on anything else; all of his instincts are ordering him to _kill_ , to send this man’s soul into Hell where he undoubtedly belongs. The man blinks back at him, a slight smile curling onto his face.

The world goes sideways. Come to think of it, he may actually black out.

Michael arrives, but there’s nothing but a hazy blue and him, the bastard, suicidal and making claims on things he has no right to. Lucifer leaves the boy’s body behind, takes on the man’s, and the blood on his stomach fades. Natalie, her presence still humming, goes quieter in the back of his head, but he’s running hot, deaf to the shallow in and outs of her breath. This _ingrate_ before him is an offense to the world; maybe Father will be proud of him when he scrapes him from the face of the earth.

(Some deep part of him, young and scared, never wants to bleed out like this again, never wants to feel his own body screaming and know that Natalie is on the other side. It’s a part of him that’s buried deep, under layer upon layer of rage, because rage is easy. Caring is not.)

It takes Michael’s shouting to bring him back to himself. The bell tone of Natalie’s name, the soft wetness of her tears – he forces himself to look away from the bastard still sprawled out on the ground and back to her, focusing on the puffiness of her eyes and not the wound still pulsing in her gut.

He breaths. He lets Michael take over.

(It is the first time in recent memory Lucifer has been grateful for the presence of his brother.)

He turns his back to the fighting and lifts Natalie in his arms. She can’t control the way her body is shaking; her consciousness is no more than a murmur in the back of his head.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he whispers, too soft to be heard over the rain. “I’m sorry.”

Natalie sniffles and presses her temple against his chest, right against the spot where his heart should be. She slurs something like an acceptance, something like an apology, and that same spot goes tight while his stomach swirls with misplaced guilt.

“Let’s get out of here,” Lucifer mutters, at last.

He doesn’t pull out his wings, doesn’t whisk the two of them away. Instead, he walks. He mutters things, occasionally, into the orange glow of her hair, and listens as her consciousness whispers back to his.

(It hurts more than he expects it to when that soft voice goes silent.)

(Then, Lucifer runs.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought!


	6. Heart Like a Garden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A rewrite of the strip "Heart Like a Garden", or Episode 166, naturally. Hope you're all doing well! Remember to comment and let me know which moments you'd like me to write about in more detail. XOXO

Natalie is _exhausted_.

Her skin feels like it doesn’t fit quite properly, and the inside of her mouth has gone as cold as ice. Side effects, Raphael tells her, of exposure to the divine energy that healed her. Natalie rubs her hands up and down her arms and waits for the sensations to die, but they linger, even through her attempts at conversation.

She smacks her lips together and smiles at Raphael, watching the way his eyes flicker back and forth between members of the party that’s gathered several yards away from bridge she – well, jumped off of.

(She can still feel gravity dragging her downward; she can feel her back smack against the water, can feel Lucifer’s arms come around her and her skin shriek in response.)

She shakes herself and keeps the corners of her mouth tilted upward, forces herself to meet Raphael’s prodding gaze.

“Thank you for saving me,” she says. She brings her hands up and presses them to her sternum, better to feel the steady thump of her heart. “I really am grateful.”

Raphael never looks at her directly, it seems; he focuses, instead, on a spot just above her head. “No need,” he tells her. “It’s what anyone would do.”

(Lucifer, half mad and with Hell spilling out of his teeth, saved her life, too. Natalie doesn’t even know how aware of it he was, only that, when she woke, spitting divine energy, she was cradled in his arms and the voices had stopped.)

She makes herself study Raphael’s eyes, even as he looks away again. She can’t quite make out their color; it keeps shifting in the moonlight.

She doesn’t know what he sees when he looks at her – flowers blooming out of her chest, vines weaving like braids through her hair. The idea of it, though, when he tells her, makes her smile, anyway. Beaming in the middle of the forest, he makes eye contact with her for the first time, and Natalie flushes with sudden victory.

Still, she doesn’t need to look back to know that Lucifer is slumping behind her. He does his best to keep his breaths soft, but he’s wavering. When she does glance at him, he’s slumped against a nearby tree. Natalie’s smile dims; she starts to move towards him, only to stop herself and look at Raphael once again.

He perceives her question without her saying a word. “My brother suffers more from the memories in his mind than physical exhaustion,” he says. His “my brother’ makes Natalie frown; sadness takes to the curve of Raphael’s jaw, tightness to the hold of his shoulders. She doesn’t contest him, though, doesn’t dare ask for more when he looks as tired as the rest of them. Instead, she thanks him again, then trots over to Lucifer’s side.

He doesn’t quite look at her when she steps up in front of him, but she knows that he knows she’s there. One of his hands twists, palm upward, in aborted greeting. It’s enough to make Natalie want to laugh, but she reigns the desire in.

Mostly. She does let out a snort. It’s gratifying to see Lucifer roll his eyes.

There is a moment, in between the half-baked plans to retrieve Michael that follow, wherein the two of them make eye contact. It’s fleeting, barely a breath’s worth of glancing, but Natalie feels her heart clench all the same.

Lucifer’s horns have dimmed back to their dusty red, not the dripping blood she saw coming after her with a sinner’s teeth. Even so, like Raphael's, Lucifer’s body threatens to go concave. He holds himself upright, it seems, on spite alone (and she almost believes that; would, if there weren’t open wounds on her back where his wings should be). Only when she’s close enough to feel his body heat singing against hers does he allow himself to slump in full. The weight of him is almost as reassuring as it is obnoxious; she complains all the way through his fall, but she braces him, just the same.

(She doesn’t know when she’s going to adjust to the feel of his skin against hers; he has such an aversion to wearing shirts that she should really start expecting things like this. He’s always so warm, like he’s burning from the inside out. It almost hurts to touch him, but she keeps her hands on him, sinking to the ground and ghosting a touch down his side, feeling him shiver.)

Gabriel, barely present, seems to disappear. If Raphael is still watching her fluttering flower heart, Natalie does not see him.

“I won’t leave again,” Lucifer tells her. It’s a gruff thing, a quiet thing, a statement meant just for her. Natalie hums, but does not reply – does not let him know that she doesn’t quite believe him, even though she wants it to be true.

Lucifer clears his throat, after that, and speaks for his audience; he orders her to stop babysitting him, and Natalie laughs aloud. She keeps smiling, though it tilts into concern as Lucifer’s knees buckle and he collapses face first down into the dirt.

He takes her down with him, the jerk. Natalie pushes against his chest and tries to laugh – her chest heaves with the effort, but Lucifer’s weight all but knocks the air from her lungs.

She stays under him for longer than she should, especially with an audience. When she manages to wriggle out, Lucifer’s body caves. His eyes flutter shut, and for a moment – just a moment – the flat line of his mouth gentles.

Natalie stares. Only at the sound of Raphael clearing his throat does she force herself to look away. The joke she cracks about drawing on Lucifer’s face is less of a joke than she means it to be. No one calls her on it when her voice shakes. Instead, it’s Gabriel, hands shaking and gaze unsteady, who offers to conjure her up a permanent marker.

Natalie’s laughter rings against tree trunks and draws all eyes to her.

In his sleep, Lucifer lets out a low sigh of relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought!


	7. Smoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This short doesn't cover a specific segment of the Satan and Me comic, but rather a collection of moments. A collection within a collection, if you will. Collect-ception.  
> ...  
> I'll stop. Enjoy! XOXO

I.

Clouds cover the half-moon above his head, but Lucifer doesn’t bother making use of the shadows to drop his human form. He lingers out of sight, anyway, shifting and uneasy. A rush of light bleeds out of the open window just a few feet to his left – the girl’s fallen asleep on her homework again, and damn him if he isn’t going to take advantage of even this smidgen of freedom in order to indulge.

Not that he can leave the property, that is. The girl’s clever when she’s bothering to put her brain to use, he’ll give her that.

Still, the concession leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. Lucifer snaps his fingers and summons a pack of cigarettes from the Void (that is, his favorite convenient store, some several countries and time zones away). It takes no effort to light one, and even less to lift one to his mouth and slip it between his lips. The nicotine doesn’t quite touch him, but the taste of smoke and mint is a welcome balm inside his mouth.

Lucifer leans back against the side of the McAllister house and smokes.

He looks a delinquent, he knows he does – worse, he probably looks like Felix. It’s quiet, though (or, rather, as quiet as it can actually get with Hell bouncing around the back of his head), and he needs that. He  _ needs  _ it, and he hasn’t had it in far, far too long.

(He wonders, idly, just how long the girl’s going to drag this out.)

(A voice, deep in the back of his brain, clears its throat. “Her name is Natalie,” it tells him in a tone so much like Michael’s that Lucifer nearly drops his cigarette then and there.)

As it is, he chokes. Lucifer pulls the cigarette from his mouth and stares at it through narrowed eyes. The red embers spit back at him, singing his nose.

Lucifer huffs, then flicks the cigarette away. He watches with idle amusement as it sputters out on the rich green of the McAllisters’ grass.

He lingers, though, watching as the sparks die out. Smoke circles up into the blue night air and leaves behind the smell of mint, of burning grass, of the bitter taste still settled on his tongue.

II.

He listens with an idle ear as the girl explains herself to her father – yes, they really did go to Oregon; yes, Stan’s mother seems to be alright; no, she hasn’t called her brother and she should really get on that.

Lucifer shakes his head and adjusts his stance against the side of the McAllister abode. He has a pack of cigarettes in the pocket of his shirt – well, not his shirt, but definitely someone’s shirt. He’s really just borrowing the image of it, and even that’s just for the girl’s sake.

Lighting up remains as easy as ever. Lucifer closes his eyes and sucks on the stick, listening as the girl’s voice goes higher and her father goes quiet.

Her lies feel less pleasant than he thought they would.

(He wonders, too, when he’s going to stop referring to her as “girl”. She’s got his seals on her shoulders and his scars on her back; she’s more his now than many who actively try and follow him. The thought sends goosebumps running up his spine – he wants to be flattered, really, but the cigarette smoke is curling around his heart and making him feel nauseas, instead.)

He looks out towards the road, sees the green of the recycling bin hiked up on the curb. It’s overflowing, and if he narrows his eyes, he can spot the bottle of Jack Daniels resting on top of milk gallons and egg cartons.

The girl’s father still won’t speak. Lucifer smokes and wonders.

III. 

Fighting with Natalie is...uncomfortable.

Lucifer paces up and down the block, the now-familiar humanness of his fingers making him twitch. There’s no point in going back to the house just yet, not with Natalie spitting mad about  _ poor little Jericho  _ and his easily-bruised face.

Lucifer reaches for a cigarette and finds his box empty. With a growl low in his throat, he reaches out, past Felix, past the reeking stench of death, and summons himself another.

He stares at the box for what feels like too long before lighting up.

It’s a meaningless habit. The fire, the smoke - they’re familiar. Comforting. If he’s getting anything else out of the whole endeavour, Lucifer isn’t quite aware of it. Still, he turns the box over in his hands and hesitates.

He’ll go back soon enough. Natalie’ll probably come home soon enough; he’ll find her sitting on her bed and pouting over her homework. He won’t apologize, but then again, neither will she. They’ll eat dinner and stand together at the sink, her washing, him drying, and he’ll try not to notice Mr. McAllister staring at the liquor cabinet or the hunger clawing at his own bottomless stomach. 

Lucifer has not had enough friends to realize that he is bad at sharing. He tells himself that it’s the way Jericho’s eyes go dark, the way Natalie goes stupid, that’s driven him this far.

In many ways, it’s not so far from the truth.

IV.

Hell is quiet.

Natalie has a first degree burn on her cheek.

Lucifer feels like his chest is bursting open; his molars ache for the joy he’s tempering back in an attempt to let the girl -  _ Natalie  _ \- finally get some sleep.

The night smells too much like fire for him to feel the need to light up. Instead, he’s bouncing, pacing through the backyard like a shadow, reveling at the sound of his own voice as it echoes in his head. 

It’s quiet.

He’s happy.

Natalie’s scars have reopened on her back, but they’ll never reopen again, because their contract - their tedious deal - is at an end.

Lucifer stops mid-step. 

The golden light of his eyes doesn’t dim, but it redirects, bouncing off of Natalie’s open window. She’d fallen asleep so quickly, the aloe vera barely dried on her cheek. She’d curled up on her side and ignored the way her shirt stuck to her back, told him to fuck off, she’d shower in the morning. Lucifer hadn’t lingered. 

Yet here he remained.

His eyebrows crease, and his hands are moving towards his shirt pocket without conscious thought. He doesn’t realize he’s fiddling with a cigarette until he taps it against his lip, contemplative. Concerned. Wary.

He doesn’t want to leave her. 

He doesn’t  _ have  _ to leave her - not yet, anyway - but the time is coming, and if he hesitates - if he stays - she’s as likely to call him on it as to let him get away with it. It’s a dangerous sort of cheating, the influence she has over him. Not that he’d ever admit to it.

Lucifer sighs. His breath comes out foggy, even in the directionless warmth of the night.

He tucks the cigarette away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought!
> 
> By the way, if you're looking around for what inspired this fic, check out orangeplum's blog for [this picture](http://68.media.tumblr.com/114a75cf6061b00280343e8d398b371e/tumblr_ooq5trhRgf1tazi6bo1_1280.png)

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought, or feel free to shout about your feelings about the latest update.


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